Murder threat case study: Former gang member didn't trust police to protect him

'I knew of several cases where people had been shot despite having had an Osman warning so it didn’t mean much to me'

Mr X is a former gang member from Birmingham who was twice issued with Osman warnings within one year.

Plain-clothes police officers called to his home to hand deliver the deadly note.

They told him they had intelligence to suggest there was a serious threat to his life and offered him protection.

This ranged from installing a panic button at his home directly linked to local police, to providing him with CCTV around his property, or in the most extreme case moving him to a police safe house or posting a uniformed officer outside his home.

“Both times I told the police where they can go because I just didn’t trust them to look after me. The second time they didn’t even issue with me a formal letter and just told me verbally because they knew I wasn’t interested,” says Mr X.

“I knew of several cases where people had been shot despite having had an Osman warning so it didn’t mean much to me.

“The police don’t tell you where the threat has come from so it could be from someone who may have said something in the heat of the moment or was just showing off and never really meant it.

“Also police mainly get to know of death threats from informers who have their own motives for talking to police and it may suit them to mislead the police as to who is a target and who is not.”

Mr X, who has survived three attempts on his life, said the perception among gang members was that police use an Osman warning as an intelligence tool in itself.

He said: “They give you the warning because they want to see how you react and then get further intelligence on you and your accomplices.

“They know that if they tell me I’m on a hit-list somewhere then I will try and figure out who’s behind it and take measures to protect myself.

“I will ring round my people and maybe call them to my home for support and the police will then come and hassle them and start watching or questioning them.”

He added: “The police obviously can’t ever guarantee your safety. I know of a case of a gang member who was moved from Ladywood to a police safe house in Dudley.

“He went out to the barbers there one day and was spotted by a rival gang member who followed him in a taxi to the safe house and shot him at the front door.”